{"id":45294,"date":"2022-06-09T08:59:06","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T23:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jun\/09\/sex-laughs-and-the-snip-an-audience-with-thailands-condom-king"},"modified":"2022-06-09T08:59:06","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T23:59:06","slug":"sex-laughs-and-the-snip-an-audience-with-thailands-condom-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=45294","title":{"rendered":"Sex, laughs and the snip: an audience with Thailand\u2019s \u2018Condom King\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thailand\u2019s population growth has slowed dramatically since the 60s, with a little help from Mechai Viravaidya\u2019s vasectomy festivals and condom-blowing competitions<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOut of these animals, which has more sex: the elephant, gorilla, cat, rabbit or honey possum?\u201d asks Mechai Viravaidya. Posing the question from his office in Bangkok, the octogenarian explains how, over almost 50 years, he has used humour to tackle serious and sometimes taboo topics in an attempt to address the serious issue of birth control. That\u2019s why he is known as Thailand\u2019s \u201cCondom King\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>From hosting vasectomy festivals to condom-blowing competitions and using sheaths as shoe shine, the activist has become a national treasure through his work on destigmatising contraception in a historically conservative culture.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jun\/09\/sex-laughs-and-the-snip-an-audience-with-thailands-condom-king\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thailand\u2019s population growth has slowed dramatically since the 60s, with a little help from Mechai Viravaidya\u2019s vasectomy festivals and condom-blowing competitions\u201cOut of these animals, which has more sex: the elephant, gorilla, cat, rabbit or honey po&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2710,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,2162,1289,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-contraception-and-family-planning","category-sex","category-thailand"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45295,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45294\/revisions\/45295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}